Null volition
by Emrys Akayuki
Summary: A thirteen year old Izuku Midoriya goes through life exhausted, every moment of his life is smothered by a lack of energy. He sleeps at every opportunity and is seen by many as a delinquent with no focus. If only he were quirkless. It would probably be better than this. Quirk!izuku Rated M because swearing.


Izuku Midoriya leaned back in his chair with a sigh and rubbed his eyes lightly, as if that would help with his exhaustion in any real way. It never did, but rubbing one's eyes when tired was just the thing that people did. Maybe it helped other people? He didn't know.

Izuku's exhaustion was related to two things at this particular moment. The fist was the fact he was currently sequestered in detention, and the second was the fact that he was always tired. Ever since he had been a child Izuku had been tired. If you were to ask his mother, she could have told you any of hundreds of stories of her child falling asleep at embarrassing, adorable or just plain unfortunate moments.

There had been worries in his early life that it was some kind of supersomnia or narcolepsy. Frankly either would have been much easier to deal with. No, his constant tiredness came from one place, perhaps the worst place. It was his quirk. Being tired was his quirk.

He had often wondered whether or not he was cursed –it certainly felt like it- even when he had been a child, even with his tiredness all he had ever dreamed of being was a hero, he would force himself to stay awake just to watch the reports of heroes, it was the only thing he could stay awake for.

Izuku had known -even then- that he was unlikely to have a powerful quirk right off the bat, in fact, the best possible outcome that could come from his parents quirks would have probably been a very minor form of pyrokinesis. But it didn't matter, no matter what it was; he could train it to be better, no matter what, he could be a hero.

An then his fourth birthday came and went, and then his fifth, and sixth, and seventh, until finally he had passed the threshold for even late bloomers and have been consequently ridiculed by all his 'friends' and various classmates for definitely being quirkless. It was only after a particularly bad bout or explosive bullying from his former friend Kacch- Katsuki.

He had begged his mother to take him to the doctor to find out what was wrong with him, something that he would some come to regret. She had agreed of course, anything to make her little hero-loving son happy. Although In hindsight it was obvious that even she thought him to be quirkless; The sad smile, the watery looks and the uncomfortable movements when they finally got there.

Frankly, he wished he was quirkless, even being 'normal' would be miles better than this life. He still remembered the doctor's words even now. It had been one of the only times he could remember that he was not only fully awake but also completely focused on what someone else was saying.

 _The doctor glanced at the results of the tests he had undergone and then back up to the parent and child sitting in front of him._

 _"So what seems to be the problem?" He asked, because there was honestly nothing wrong with the child –whose results he was clearly looking at- a small vitamin D deficiency, but nothing dangerous. He was a healthy nine year old child, nothing unusual or of place at all._

 _The woman's eyes flicked towards her child "Uh- It's his quirk?" She sounded uncertain at what she was saying even as she said it, but the child next to her was staring at him with an almost manic seriousness in his eyes._

 _"Yes" The doctor shifted uncomfortably in his seat, the kid was really freaking him out "What about it?" Immediately, the tone in the room shifted. The Mother froze in place, her uncertain gaze shifting instantly into an owlish blinking surprise and the child next to her had leaned forward to such a degree that he was almost falling off his seat, his eyes wide and mouth open in what seemed to be half a smile and half of a shocked gape._

 _"He has a-" The mother tried to start before being cut off by her son with almost the same question._

 _"I have a quirk?!" The question came out as more of a shout than an actual question and would have usually made the doctor laugh if it weren't such an unusual question._

 _He furrowed his brow and looked at the two in front of him "Of course you do" He opened the results in front of him and searched for the right piece of paper._

 _"This" The doctor said, holding up an X-ray result to the young patient "Is an X-ray we did of your foot. Do you see this little bit here" He pointed to the toe joint and the boy nodded "This is an indicator of quirks"_

 _They both gave him puzzled looks and he let out an awkward cough before continuing._

 _"Despite eighty percent of the population having quirks there's still not much we actually know about them, this, however has always been perfectly consistent" He pointed again at the picture "Every single person on the planet with a quirk" And a humanoid body, he added to himself "has only had one toe joint. If you have one, you have a quirk, if you have two, you don't. It's as simple as that."_

 _The doctor continued "Do you mean to tell me that you don't know what his quirk is? That he hasn't exhibited any signs whatsoever?"_

 _"Well" The mother started "I can attract small objects to me and my husband could breathe fire, but he hasn't done either of those things"_

 _"The child's quirk can also be a combination of their parents, perhaps making or moving fire?" He arched an eyebrow at them, but the mother shook her head._

 _"No, nothing like that, nothing at all" She shook her head sadly and put a hand on the child's shoulder in an obvious sign of support, although with the way the child was still staring at him as if he was an angel sent from god he wasn't sure that the kid actually needed it. He wasn't even sure if he had heard a single word of their conversation since the revelation of his quirkood._

 _"Well" He decided to look at the mother instead of her slightly creepy child "There are a few tests we can run to see if we can figure out what it does, we can start with the subtle quirk tests if you would like, they're not painful" He glanced at the kid "Although here would be a blood test… would he be alright with that?"_

 _"I do-" The mother tried again._

 _"That's great- I- uh, I mean I'm fine with that… yeah" It was difficult for the doctor to not let out a smile at his innocent excitement before it was overridden by every child's natural shyness. "Wait- what's a subtle quirk?"_

 _"Well, as I'm sure you might have noticed, not all quirks are active, not all of them can be activated, like someone with a water quirk shooting a spray of water. "He holed the analogy wasn't over the kid's head "Instead, some like mutation quirks are passive, the person is born with their quirk, maybe with an extra arm or with animal features and they'll always have that, it will always be 'on'"_

 _The doctor waited for the child to nod before continuing "Some quirks, like I suspect yours might be, are also always on, and although they may not be mutation quirks they will always be doing something, and sometimes, this something is very hard to figure out. For instance there was a man whose quirk let him always make perfect scrambled eggs. Almost impossible to notice"_

 _Apparently this wasn't exactly what the nine year old wanted to hear as his head had dropped down further and further during the explanation. "We don't have to do the tests if you don't want; all quirks are inherently beneficial to the user, if you're worried" His attempt at mollification was apparently also the wrong thing to say, as the child's head snapped back up and he bored his eyes into the doctor's with determination that children really shouldn't have._

 _"No" He said, voice a little unsteady " I- I want to know. I have to, I'm gonna be a hero" He grinned his best smile at the medical professional._

 _The doctor took a moment to take the scene in, a determined child staring at him and a quietly giggling mother sitting next to him. He turned to the mother "Well we can start right now if you want"_

It had taken considerably longer than any of the doctor's had thought to figure out exactly what his quirk was and what it did, not because the tests were inaccurate or because they couldn't be specific –The later tests had become quite invasive and time-consuming for that very purpose- but because the results of said tests just didn't make sense.

Izuku Midoriya had the first quirk in history that didn't do anything, the first quirk that was actually detrimental to the 'user's' health. In all the history of quirks, there had obviously been a few odd ones; Ones that didn't do anything useful, ones that only worked under such specific conditions that until the tests were run nobody could even tell they were there, and ones that did things nobody could actually make sense of.

But Izuku's… Izuku's quirk actively harmed him; it was –as the doctor had thought- a subtle quirk, always on, always working, always hurting him. And so; at age twelve, after four years of invasive and sometimes, painful, tests, it was determined that the results the doctors were looking at were correct.

As far as anyone could tell his quirk prevented his cells from moving quickly, at first they had assumed that it was draining energy from them to use it for something else. But that something else could never be determined, because it didn't exist. He had had his quirk from the day he was born, and since it had prevented them from moving properly in the first place there had never been any excess.

The doctor's had theorized –as useful as it had been- that his quirk hadn't developed properly, that because it had activated at his birth rather than later in life it could only ever do half its job. Whatever the energy was supposed to be used for, never appeared.

Unfortunately, even that was thrown out of the window when they had checked his DNA, his quirk, his horrible fucking quirk, was completely developed within him, there was absolutely nothing wrong on the technical side. It was working exactly as designed. And if it hadn't apparently been designed by an idiot, that would have been great news.

He had remembered crying the night after they told him there was nothing more they could do, nothing else they could test. The results were soul-crushing, so even though he was nearly thirteen at the time he had bawled like a baby. But even that experience hadn't been nearly as bad as what followed it. Like any other person he had had to register his quirk with the government. At least with it being completely unique he was allowed to choose the name.

I was difficult not to be vindictive and call it 'stupid fucking mess' But he had always loved quirks, everything about them, even the name, and although his was terrible he wasn't going to pass up the opportunity. Besides, he had reasoned, if anyone else would ever be unfortunate enough to be stuck with it, at least they would have a cool name.

'Null Volition'

It wasn't exactly accurate, but it was close enough for his liking, and it sounded cool, which was rather important to a twelve year old who had just been dealt a horrible hand in life.

Now fourteen years of age and sitting in one of the many detentions he had been given over his middle school career Izuku sat at his desk, his head resting on his hand and his face resolutely set in a bored and unimpressed expression as he stared at the clock on the far wall. He raised his other hand up again to rub his eyes. It hadn't worked the last time, but who knew.

It was then that the teacher finally walked in, he had left thirty minutes ago to go do something and of course left Izuku in the room alone, for twenty minutes longer than his detention had actually been set. It was a tactic many of the teachers had used over the past years. They didn't really like him.

There had been an incident earlier in the year that had a teacher attempting to suspend him for 'misconduct' The teacher had been angry about him constantly sleeping in class and not paying attention, it didn't matter if his grades were near the top of the class despite his troubles. He was an easy target, for both the kids and the teachers; The apparent quirkless delinquent who couldn't be bothered to stay awake during class.

He had been dragged to the headmaster's office and they were halfway through the paperwork to get rid of him when his mother had burst in through the door. It was perhaps the only time he had actually seen her angry, his adorable, worrying mother who always did everything she could to make him happy, was shouting at his teachers.

They had first tried to shout back, 'explaining' what a terrible son she had, of course that argument went down the drain with his high grades and lack of any real record whatsoever, so they changed their tune immediately and tried to argue his lack of focus and sleep; Arguments that were easily shut down with an application of a lot of yelling and a call to the doctor that had first told him about his quirk.

Anger and indignity had suddenly turned to pity and fear, if that had thrown him out of school for constantly sleeping in class. That would have been fine. If he were quirkless that is. Because if he was quirkless then he would simply be a problem child, but with his quirk being the source of his issues that opened up a whole host of issues that no school board would want to deal with. If it was found out that they were discriminating against him because of his quirk then the whole country would come down on them.

In the end they had let him stay at home for a week and had backed off completely after that. Of course, it didn't last forever and with the fact that not all the teachers even believed he was telling the truth, the detentions eventually continued.

He wasn't actually sure what this one was for, but it definitely wasn't his fault. Or problem, so he didn't bother squirming under the dark scowl being sent his way.

Mr. Yuuki glowered a little more before finally giving up and piling the excess paperwork on his desk into a brown bag. "You can go Midoriya" He let out a sigh as Izuku picked up his bad and began to walk out "Just don't do it again"

"Yes sir" Izuku said, not bothering to look at him.

"Midoriya" Izuku paused in step and turned his bored stare to the teacher

"Sir?"

The teacher picked up the last piece of paper on his desk "Are you serious about this?"

It was his High school application, only one of the boxes was filled out, his first choice, U.A academy. "Of course I am sir" Why wouldn't he be serious

Mr. Yuuki looked uncomfortable and glanced at the paper then back to him a few times before finally speaking "Are you sure you didn't make a mistake? This is the hero course you can't possibly-"

"With all due respect sir, I've dreamed of being a hero all my life" His bored stare turned almost angry as he put effort into glaring at the teacher "and _despite_ the issues I've suffered all my life" At this, the teacher flinched "I have the chance now to turn my dream into a reality. I'm not going to pass it up"

With his part said Izuku made his way out of the room and out of the school. He would definitely be in trouble for that the next day, and he would definitely be late for dinner, but it didn't really matter, his mother knew he was a slow walker. Even without his unlawful detentions he was usually late for something.

Of course, with him being as tired as he was all the time, he never missed an opportunity to take a shortcut which is why on this random Tuesday Izuku Midoriya found himself walking through a storm drain under a bridge.

The attack was loud, fast, and painful. The manhole cover in front of him shot into the roof of the bridge with enough force to embed it there, a series of spider-web cracks immediately moved through the stone alongside a deafening crunching sound.

But Izuku barely saw any of this; he was instead focussed on the green slime that had flowed out of the now uncovered hole, quickly following the manhole cover. It took only seconds of movement before all of the slime had gathered out of the hole in front of him. A grotesque torso and a set of monstrous arms folded out from the creature, two bulbous eyes rolled into place and just under them, a wide mouth rippled open, almost splitting the creature horizontally in an extremely unnatural way, accentuated by the humongous tongue the flopped out.

"Well, well, well" The creature said, its voice gurgled as if the words were being spoken by a drowning man. It stared at Izuku with unrestrained glee, the slime around its eyes pulling back even further to reveal almost the entire orb and its mouth twisted into an even more warped facsimile of a grin.

"I only wanted to escape that pest, but it seems I've found a better alternative, wouldn't you agree?"

Izuku could only tremble in fear, adrenaline coursing through his body for maybe the first time in his life. There was a villain in front of him, and he was terrified "Wha-" He started to say. What he would have said, even he didn't know but he never got far enough to find out.

Before he could finish his sentence, the creature lunged, its viscous mobile body easily clearing the space between them. In an instant it had wrapped itself around his body, the great monstrous hands forcing him to stay in place, no matter how much he attempted to struggle.

Quickly, the slime moved up is body, his feeble struggling and straining didn't do anything but use up his own energy faster.

"Eheheheheh! This is a fantastic invisibility cloak" The creature laughed "At least for now. It's a good thing you don't have a quirk that can stop me!" Izuku could feel its mouth grinning against his face as the slime consumed even more of him, the creature supplanting its body over his and cutting off his mouth and nose from the air he so desperately needed.

"Of course" It continued sickly "I'll have to get rid of your pathetic body later and find someone with a stronger ability, but you'll do for now!"

 _"NO"_ Izuku tried to scream. He couldn't die like this! he was going to be a hero. There had to be something he could do! There had to be someone who could help him! Why wasn't anyone here?! HE DIDN'T WANT TO DIE!

He could feel himself try to retch as the slime forced itself up his nose and down his throat, Izuku could feel it drowning his lungs. Blackness creeped across his eyes and it felt as if his brain had burst. The Last thing he heard was the villain's sick laugher, a symphony for his suffering.

Izuku passed out.

 **Line**

With a burst of energy he didn't know he possessed Izuku jolted upright from where he was lying on the floor, before immediately having to blink against the brightness of the sun in his eyes when he had passed out he had been under the bridge so the sun hadn't-

 _Passed out._

Izuku scrambled backwards at the thought, he twisted his head in any direction he could, looking for the villain- The monster that had attacked him. There was no sign of the creature, but that didn't stop him from hyperventilating, he had no idea what was going on, how had he escaped the monster? Where was it? What was going on? Where was he? Because he definitely wasn't under the bridge anymo-

Yes he was. The storm drain and surrounding area looked exactly the same, but the bridge, the bridge he was directly under. Had been destroyed; the rubble around him went as far as his eye could see and the floor under him was cracked and cratered two indentations stood out clearly to him, they were footprints. The bridge had been destroyed by a person and the villain was nowhere to be seen.

Izuku collapsed onto his back and let out an almost hysterical laugh at the thought. "I'm alive, a hero saved me" He started taking deep long breaths and closed his eyes, not only to calm down, but also to relish in the fact that he could breathe again. He flinched. Perhaps it would be better not to think of that again. He took another breath and smiled, the sun felt fantastic on his skin. It was a shame the hero had disappeared for some reason, he would have loved to meet them and thank them.

"Are you alright now young man?" The question was innocent, but since that he hadn't seen anyone around him and also the fact it had originated barely ten inches from his face, Izuku reacted in the only logical way.

"AHHHH" He screamed and lurched back out of his relaxed position, this was unfortunately the wrong choice as it led to his head slamming directly into the face of the man leaning over him. Which subsequently lead to the both of them grasping their faces in pain. "Ah fuck" He really hoped his nose wasn't broken. Wait-

Izuku twisted around and immediately tried to move back as far as he could away from the stranger when his brain finally took in what his eyes were impossibly telling him. It was All Might, his hero, _THE_ hero!... Standing in front of him, gingerly touching a slightly reddened nose

"Ah- A-A-A-All Might! I'm so sorry!" He couldn't move from his place on the floor, he couldn't believe it, he had hurt All Might! It was impossible the great hero wouldn't be angry.

"HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH" Izuku needn't have worried as the hero let out a great boisterous laugh "No problem young man, I shouldn't have snuck up on you like that!" His words flowed out of his mouth booming and filled with warmth. The direct opposite of villain's earlier speech.

The villain. The bridge was destroyed, there were indentations in the floor and the monster was nowhere to be seen. All Might had saved his life! As fast as he could, Izuku rose to his feet and fell into the lowest bow his energy deprived body could allow for. "THANK YOU FOR SAVING ME!" he didn't exactly want to shout the words but his excitement at both being alive and having been saved by All Might himself had finally overridden him. If Izuku hadn't had his face pointing directly at the floor he would have seen All Might frown at him before making a considering face.

He spoke in a much more relaxed tone this time. "You mean you don't remember?"

"Uh-" He lifted uncertainly out of his bow "Remember what exactly?"

All Might suddenly looked concerned "This" He gestured at the destroyed bridge

"Oh- Uh, sorry All Might, the villain, he- I was unconscious you see…" Izuku trailed off. He hadn't really expected the number one hero to be so vain as to need his accomplishments seen "I-I mean" God, he hadn't stuttered this much in years "I'm thankful that you saved me but-"

All Might cut him off "My boy, I didn't save you" His frown became more pronounced "Do you really not remember?"

"Uhh" Izuku was starting to get worried. But before he could try to formulate a proper response, All Might pulled a bottle out of his pockets that Izuku hadn't noticed before. But he suddenly had to stop himself from flinching as he noticed the green colouration of the liquid and the unfocused eye floating in it.

"I-Is that-"

All Might nodded "This" He shook the bottle for emphasis and this time Izuku couldn't help but tremble a bit, in All Might's hands the thing would never be able to harm him, but the experience had still left its mark.

All Might continued "Is the villain that attacked you." He paused as if the next words would be difficult to say "But I did not defeat him, you did."

"W-What?" That was impossible, the last thing he remembered was drowning in slime, there was no way he could have beaten it. And then there was the massive amount of damage surrounding them "But I don't- I couldn't have-" He tried to stammer a response.

"That's quite a powerful quirk you have young man" _That_ was something he knew.

"N-No it isn't" All Might looked towards the rubble and then back to him and rose an eyebrow in a very exaggerated movement "No, but… it doesn't do anything"

"I'm sorry?"

"My quirk, it doesn't- It just makes me tired, I'll never be able to do this" He gestured wildly at the rubble, hoping to get his point across.

"Null volition" Izuku froze. "I thought I had recognized you from somewhere" he let out a hearty chuckle "You made quite the wave in the world with that you know"

"I-I did? I didn't even know anyone else knew about it…"

"Of course! The only quirk in history to be purely detrimental? People tend to notice that kind of thing." Izuku suddenly felt really uncomfortable. People knew?

"Although" All Might said slowly "Given what's happened here, I would think that there's quite a bit more to your quirk than first thought"

"B-But how do you know that I did it? Couldn't it have been some- Some other hero?" There was just no way he had done this, he had never had this kind of power. He had lived his entire life in exhaustion, if he could do something like this then he would have done it years ago!

"Because I saw you do it"

 **Aaaaaand, that's the end of that chapter. I hope you enjoyed it! And I hope that it didn't drag along too much, I have a tendency to put in more detail or description than necessary. If you know anything about writing, I'd love to be reviewed about my technical ability. I wanna be a proper author eventually so everything helps.**

 **Anyway, follow favourite and again, review. I'll see you next chapter :D**


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